Self-teaching A Level Psychology

Original post by hellohannahyo

I plan on teaching myself AS/A Level psychology over the next two years as my sixth form doesn't offer it. I want to inquire as to whether it is possible to achieve an A/A* through this mode of teaching. I am also curious about what text books are best for my course, I plan to use Edexcel as my exam board.

Thanks for the help! :cool:

i have just finished self-teaching psychology for the AQA Exam board and achieved A*.
It took me a little over a year starting from February last year.

its possible with a lot of dedication.

This was sent from Mephestics Galaxy Far far away..
Psya1: 83ums Psya2: 90 ums
Psya3: 100ums Psya4: 100ums
Total ums: 373/400
Final Grade = A*

How I did it:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/aqa-psychology-psya3-aggression/id547172151?ls=1

Reply 3

jackie11

I am just starting this (A level Psychology) as a distance learning course. My course is for the AQA spec, not sure how different it is to Edexcel

Reply 4

Yes, this is the same question I was going to ask. I going to check the spec and other posts to see how everyone has been getting on with it.

Reply 5

Well feel free to fire any questions at me as I have just finished doing this A level with AQA doing the A spec via home learning on my own without any support - merely entering the exams as a private candidate and learning from books I got off amazon designed around the spec.

I achieved A* scoring 373/400 ums (full marks in papers 3+4 for A2).

Best way I learnt was reading the specification for each of the papers and then learning everything they say you need to know for each paper really and memorising the books in essence.

Psya1 and Psya2 are smaller questions generally with 1 big 12 marker that can be asked and perhaps a smaller one that can be 8 marks or so, some even 6 markers.

This means your basically memorising chunks of information which may be easier for some.

Paper 3 + 4 becomes harder I find as it means your having to memorise huge model answers for each topic and unless you are a savant in memorising things I would suggest getting an early start on these creating your model answers for each topic.

On amazon you can find books that are made specifically for the specification that will help you - the complete companion - 3rd edition is the latest book suited to the new spec and the colins book has a lot of information too which is useful and gives better detail.

The hardest part I imagine distant learners will have for papers 3+4 is creating your model answers to memorise - I find if you want to reach the high grades you need to have a good plan prior and not just sit and read - you need to be actively memorising everything in an essay form.

Psya1 I would simply go through each topic writing out everything over and over from start to beginning for each topic until you know it all by heart really. Past papers are excellent for papers 1+2.

Papers 3+4 you need a different approach - past papers are only helpful in trying to guess what may come up but it will only be a best guess and you have 8 topics of which you pick 3 to study.

I studied Aggression, Relationships and Sleep simply because they were things I personally could relate to and I felt the easiest.

Having picked those topics you then need to look at the spec and see what possible questions can be asked for these topics and then create model answers for each topic.

Each topic has about 7-8 essay answers approximately that you need to learn - when you times that by 3 for for all 3 topics that means you need to create and then memorise about 25 or so essay answers to regurgitate in the exam itself from memory.

It is possible but very stressful and time consuming - Creating perfect well balanced essay answers is difficult and then repeatedly writing them over and over again until they stick is also - but its what I did.

My model answers for Psya3 and the aggression topic are available in my signiture link - they should help achieve full marks for each possible question as they worked for me.

I havnt uploaded the others yet but will plan to upload my answers that got me full marks for psya4 - the topics I did were Schizophrenia, Media Psychology and Research methods as standard.

But the textbooks are also good if you are happy to create your own answers and memorise them - mine are only good if your struggling and simply want the ready made answers to memorise.

This was sent from Mephestics Galaxy Far far away..
Psya1: 83ums Psya2: 90 ums
Psya3: 100ums Psya4: 100ums
Total ums: 373/400
Final Grade = A*

How I did it:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/aqa-psychology-psya3-aggression/id547172151?ls=1

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 6

Miracle Day

21

I agree with the above, I found Psyhology the hardest. Look at my sig for my subject details.

Reply 7

Original post by Miracle Day

I agree with the above, I found Psyhology the hardest. Look at my sig for my subject details.

?? eh

Reply 8

Is it worth doing an access to psychology rather than an A level in psych seeing that if anything goes wrong you at least come out with some recognition yet if you do A level you could just fail abysmally?

Reply 9

Howbeit

19

I taught myself A2 Psychology, spent about 3 weeks learning the first Jan exam and got 100% and 5 days learning the second and got 95%. I attended only a few lessons so I would say its definitely possible.

Reply 10

Original post by vVShabbaVv

Is it worth doing an access to psychology rather than an A level in psych seeing that if anything goes wrong you at least come out with some recognition yet if you do A level you could just fail abysmally?

its unlikely you can fail it if you put a decent amount of effort in.

I would argue getting a grade C is quite easy..

This was sent from Mephestics Galaxy Far far away..
Psya1: 83ums Psya2: 90 ums
Psya3: 100ums Psya4: 100ums
Total ums: 373/400
Final Grade = A*

How I did it:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/aqa-psychology-psya3-aggression/id547172151?ls=1

Reply 11

EffieFlowers

3

I don't know, you'd easily learn the content and understand on your own. But you'd have to really try hard with the essay techniques! Of course I'm pretty sure it explains all the essay techniques in the text book so you should be fine. Try and do extra reading as well.

Gooood luck. :smile:

Reply 12

u0b2

Original post by hellohannahyo

I plan on teaching myself AS/A Level psychology over the next two years as my sixth form doesn't offer it. I want to inquire as to whether it is possible to achieve an A/A* through this mode of teaching. I am also curious about what text books are best for my course, I plan to use Edexcel as my exam board.

Thanks for the help! :cool:

I dont know about edexcel psychology, but AQA is really easy. For aqa I used the 'cat book'.
Psychology is quite challanging to teach yourself. It's mostly about essay writing and you will need a solid structure for your essays.

Reply 13

hellohannahyo

OP

I'll have a look at the AQA exam board as that seems to be highly recommended! Thanks for the help everyone :smile:

Reply 14

My friend just got shafted by AQA after working hard with A level Psych so I am doing the access and something else as an insurance. Good luck all!

Reply 15

Jamie8675309

Does anyone have any experience with self-teaching the A-level in one year?

Thanks to Mephestic for the very detailed posts

Reply 16

Pink amyapple

Is AQA Psychology or edexcel Psychology harder?

Thanks x

Reply 17

Sesshomaru24U

18

Original post by hellohannahyo

I plan on teaching myself AS/A Level psychology over the next two years as my sixth form doesn't offer it. I want to inquire as to whether it is possible to achieve an A/A* through this mode of teaching. I am also curious about what text books are best for my course, I plan to use Edexcel as my exam board.

Thanks for the help! :cool:

Doing this with philosophy in one year lol. What I recommend to you in to find out the specification and what board, learn what you looking to be writing on the exam paper - e.g. find exemplar answers and follow a structure similar to them including information and so on etc. Buy the textbooks and work from them, especially if it's one the exam board hasn't actually made for the certain exam. If your ever stuck just book a tutor.

Good Luck ^^

Reply 18